Recovered Historic Catch and Weight – Length Data of Nearshore Fish Populations on Sturgeon and Roberts Banks, Fraser River Estuary, British Columbia

Recovered Historic Catch and Weight – Length Data of Nearshore Fish Populations on Sturgeon and Roberts Banks, Fraser River Estuary, British Columbia A goal of the Government of Canada’s Coastal Environmental Baseline Program (CEBP) is to amalgamate historic environmental data from high vessel traffic areas. An extensive DFO biological sampling program was conducted from 1980 to 1981 on Sturgeon and Roberts banks located on the outer Fraser River estuary, BC, Canada. This report collates and simplifies three data sets: water quality and nearshore fish catch previously published as DFO Data Report 340 (Conlin et al.1982), and un- published weight-length (W-L) data for two locations on Sturgeon Bank (Iona and Steveston) and near Westshore Terminals (Coal Port) on Roberts Bank. W-L data were reconstructed from archived computer printouts using Optical Character Recognition methods. Analyses of water quality data indicate that the two banks provided different fish habitats with Sturgeon Bank having a greater freshwater influence. Although Iona area water quality was exposed to sewage outfall from a nearby sewage treatment plant, it appears that fish communities were not different from the other Sturgeon Bank area (Steveston). The fish communities were found to be different between the two banks with Roberts Bank having greater overall abundance and diversity. Interestingly, of the seven fish species used for condition factor analyses, five were found to have lower Relative Condition Factors in the Roberts Bank sampling area. 2024-10-08 Fisheries and Oceans Canada cher.lacoste@dfo-mpo.gc.ca Nature and EnvironmentScience and TechnologyBritish ColumbiaSturgeon bankRoberts bankFraser River estuaryabundancediversitywater qualitynearshore fish catchweight - lengthAquatic ecosystemsSurveys Weight - Lenght DataCSV https://api-proxy.edh.azure.cloud.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/catalogue/records/c288ed39-69f4-4042-8433-65af5c58f141/attachments/Weight_length_data.csv Nearshore Fish Catch DataCSV https://api-proxy.edh.azure.cloud.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/catalogue/records/c288ed39-69f4-4042-8433-65af5c58f141/attachments/Catch_data.csv Water Quality DataCSV https://api-proxy.edh.azure.cloud.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/catalogue/records/c288ed39-69f4-4042-8433-65af5c58f141/attachments/Water_quality_data.csv Canadian Data Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 3626PDF https://api-proxy.edh.azure.cloud.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/catalogue/records/c288ed39-69f4-4042-8433-65af5c58f141/attachments/Historic%20Fish%20Data%20Tech%20Report_Herunter.pdf Data DictionaryCSV https://api-proxy.edh.azure.cloud.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/catalogue/records/c288ed39-69f4-4042-8433-65af5c58f141/attachments/Data_Dictionary_EN_FR.csv Recovered Historic Catch and Weight – Length Data of Nearshore Fish PopulationsESRI REST https://egisp.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/arcgis/rest/services/open_data_donnees_ouvertes/historic_catch_nearshore_fish_populations_fraser_river_estuary_bc/MapServer Recovered Historic Catch and Weight – Length Data of Nearshore Fish PopulationsESRI REST https://egisp.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/arcgis/rest/services/open_data_donnees_ouvertes/historic_catch_nearshore_fish_populations_fraser_river_estuary_bc/MapServer

A goal of the Government of Canada’s Coastal Environmental Baseline Program (CEBP) is to amalgamate historic environmental data from high vessel traffic areas. An extensive DFO biological sampling program was conducted from 1980 to 1981 on Sturgeon and Roberts banks located on the outer Fraser River estuary, BC, Canada. This report collates and simplifies three data sets: water quality and nearshore fish catch previously published as DFO Data Report 340 (Conlin et al.1982), and un- published weight-length (W-L) data for two locations on Sturgeon Bank (Iona and Steveston) and near Westshore Terminals (Coal Port) on Roberts Bank. W-L data were reconstructed from archived computer printouts using Optical Character Recognition methods. Analyses of water quality data indicate that the two banks provided different fish habitats with Sturgeon Bank having a greater freshwater influence. Although Iona area water quality was exposed to sewage outfall from a nearby sewage treatment plant, it appears that fish communities were not different from the other Sturgeon Bank area (Steveston). The fish communities were found to be different between the two banks with Roberts Bank having greater overall abundance and diversity. Interestingly, of the seven fish species used for condition factor analyses, five were found to have lower Relative Condition Factors in the Roberts Bank sampling area.

Data and Resources

Contact Information

Delivery Point: DFO Pacific Science Enterprise Centre, 4160 Marine Dr.

City: West Vancouver

Administrative Area: British Columbia

Postal Code: V7V 1N6

Country: Canada

Electronic Mail Address: cher.lacoste@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

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